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Reactionaries

On Saturday night, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra opened with Fantasia on an Ostinato by John Corigliano, a short piece based on a famous repetitive passage by Ludwig van Beethoven (the second movement of Symphony No. 7.)

I loved it, but others reacted differently.

A Rochester blogger who went to the concert with her husband wrote,
“. . . we, the unsuspecting and innocent audience, were assaulted with the most horrible sounds I think I have ever heard coming from a musical instrument . . .Just to give you an idea of what it sounded like to me. Gather together about 30 different radios and tune each on into a different station. Turn up the volume to maximum on every radio and stand in the middle try not to go deaf or lose your dinner. That’s what it sounded like to me.”

The Democrat and Chronicle critic Stuart Low wrote,

“The RPO wasted splendid playing on John Corigliano's Fantasia on an Ostinato - an arcade bazaar of fascinating timbres that mercifully conceal the thin musical content. . . . but showy orchestration prevents this piece from sinking into stoned monotony.”

Why do we react so differently to plinking noises and breath blown through hollow tubes?

Comments

I would have posted this to "Ibuzza's" blog, but she has no feedback link, and I just can't let it go. She says, "If you have ever watched it you probably already know this, but, almost all of the fight scenes in Star Trek had passages from 'Bolero' underscoring the scenes."
Um, what time-space continuum is *she* from? Bolero was not played on Star Trek. Ever.

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